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Abstract Aqueous zinc‐ion batteries are promising alternatives to lithium‐ion batteries due to their cost‐effectiveness and improved safety. However, several challenges, including corrosion, dendrites, and water decomposition at the Zn anode, hinder their performance. Herein, an approach is proposed, that deviates from the conventional design by adding water into a propylene carbonate‐based organic electrolyte to prepare a non‐flammable “water‐in‐organic” electrolyte. The chaotropic salt Zn(ClO4)2exploits the Hofmeister effect to promote the miscibility of immiscible liquid phases. Interactions between propylene carbonate and water restrict water activity and mitigate unfavorable reactions. This electrolyte facilitates preferential Zn (002) deposition and the formation of solid electrolyte interphase. Consequently, the “water‐in‐organic” electrolyte achieves a 99.5% Coulombic efficiency at 1 mA cm−2over 1000 cycles in Zn/Cu cells, and constant cycling over 1000 h in Zn/Zn symmetric cells. A Na0.33V2O5/Zn battery exhibits impressive cycling stability with a capacity of 175 mAh g−1for 800 cycles at 2 A g−1. Additionally, this electrolyte enables sustainable cycling across a wide temperature range from −20 to 50 °C. The design of a “water‐in‐organic” electrolyte employing a chaotropic salt presents a potential strategy for high‐performance electrolytes in zinc‐ion batteries with a large stability window and a wide temperature range.
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This content will become publicly available on July 11, 2026
Highly textured metal anodes for stable aqueous batteries: Fabrication and characterization
We report a purely mechanical “cold-compression flow” method for fabricating Zn, Sn, and In substrates with tunable crystallographic textures. Using textured Zn as a model system, we investigate Zn electrocrystallization and demonstrate correlated growth of crystalline films with correlation lengths from tens to hundreds of micrometers. At 5 milliamperes per square centimeter (mA/cm2), capacities between 20 and 82 milliampere hours per square centimeter (mA·hour/cm2) are achieved depending on substrate texture level. At higher currents (40 mA/cm2), capacities reach up to 604 mA·hour/cm2. Rotating disk electrode studies show that dominantly (002) textured Zn substrates exhibit enhanced corrosion resistance and reduced interphase passivation. We introduce an effective Damköhler number (Da*) to concisely describe morphological evolution during electrocrystallization across substrates with different textures. High-texture (002) Zn substrates substantially enhance performance in high-capacity (~20 mA·hour/cm2) symmetric Zn||Zn cells and full cells (Zn||δ-MnO2and Zn||I2), enabling fast-charging and prolonged energy storage in coin and pouch rechargeable Zn battery formats.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2144171
- PAR ID:
- 10653621
- Publisher / Repository:
- AAAS
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Science Advances
- Volume:
- 11
- Issue:
- 28
- ISSN:
- 2375-2548
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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